Re: Draft Summary: MPL is not DFSG free
Matthew Palmer <mpalmer@debian.org>:
> > > Yes, but you could then tell them and the court that they had to move the
> > > suit to where you lived. With this clause, you couldn't (unless the clause
> > > was ruled to be unenforcable).
> >
> > This is circular. A court has to decide from the facts of the case
> > whether the clause is "enforceable". Which court decides that? That
> > depends on whether the clause is "enforceable". So where do we start?
>
> I would imagine that the plaintiff would argue in their local court that the
> clause was enforceable, and the defendant would argue in their local court
> that it wasn't. If both won in their respective juristictions, you would
> appeal the decisions to a higher court, one with juristiction over both
> lower courts.
>From reading groklaw.net I get the impression that US courts don't
like duplication of effort, so I would guess that in this scenario the
case in the plaintiff's court would be stayed awaiting the result of
the case in the defendant's court. The defendant might have a defence
that doesn't use the licence at all, so it would be total waste of
time for the other court to discuss the details of a clause in a
document that turns out to be completely irrelevant.
With a contract that both parties have signed it's fairly easy to see
that both parties have agreed to the choice of venue; with a public
licence quite a lot of legal work has to be done in order to show that
the licence has anything to do with the case. So I wonder whether such
a clause in a public licence has any practical effect and if so, how.
But I guess nobody here knows the answer so I'll shut up now. Sorry
for rambling.
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